


Of Monsters and Men

by Lore55



Category: One Piece
Genre: Boggarts, Curses, Demon AU, Doctor Trafalgar D. Water Law, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Guardian Angel, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Into the Woods - Freeform, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SO MUCH FLUFF, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Vampire AU, Werewolf AU, Werewolf!Luffy, Zombie AU, everyone's a monster sometimes, ghost au, magic straw hat, magic tattoos, sorta - Freeform, zombie!Marco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-08 03:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 14,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lore55/pseuds/Lore55
Summary: Each day I write based on a different prompt for Halloween! There's a list in chapter one!





	1. Day 1 : Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 : Scars (Zoro knows there's something not right with his captain. It's the scar that gives it away.)  
> Day 2 : Fear (There are things Usopp is afraid of, and few things he is not. He's not sure which one his captain is.)  
> Day 3 : Teeth (For Sanji the give away is the teeth)  
> Day 4 : Monsters (Nami learns what real monsters looks like)  
> Day 5 : S(c)ent (It would be just like Dr. Hiluluk to send him a devil instead of an angel)  
> Day 6 : Red (Robin's attempted blackmail doesn't go the way she thought it would.  
> Day 7 : Pumpkin (Ace has a family tradition, and a new family)  
> Day 8 : Haunted House (Or ship, as the case may be)  
> Day 9 : Zombies (At some point the world ended. It was all Ace's dads fault) Ace/Marco  
> Day 10 : Raven (It is said that Raven carry the spirits of the dead on their backs) ASL  
> Day 11 : Moon (The tattoo changed. Law checked. It matched the phases of the moon.) Kidd/Law  
> Day 12 : Bat (Franky liked the warm, quiet nights when his little friend flew through the window to see him) Franky/Robin  
> Day 14 : Crossroads (Nami thought the devil had red eyes. She was wrong.) Nami/Robin  
> Day 15 : Amulet (Nami get's an amulet from Sanji that results in a harry situation for all the Strawhats)  
> Day 16 : Eyeball (Zoro knew it would happen eventually. He just wished it wasn't Nami that would see) Zoro/Nami  
> Day 17 : Scarecrow (Scarecrows walk at midnight, don't you know? Ace didn't.)  
> Day 18 : Black (The color of his heart) Luffy/Law  
> Day 19 : Mask (Once upon a time, there was a little prince...)  
> Day 20 : Skeleton (Everyone had skeleton's in their closet. Some were more literal than others)  
> Day 21 : Witch (She was on the corner. Every corner. Zoro knew he was desperate when he sought her out) Zoro/Luffy  
> Day 22 : Black Cat (The curse followed him for the rest of his days)  
> Day 23 : Wood (The curse of the wood meets a plague on humanity) Robin/Luffy  
>  Day 24 : Clown (Shanks follows Buggy and sees something he'll regret)   
> Day 25 : Candy (With not real halloween in the middle of the ocean, Sanji makes due)
> 
> The first 6 chapters all take place in the same universe, and all center around the Strawhats and their captain. They're also really short! Sorry T_T

DAY ONE: SCARS

They all know, in their own ways, but they don’t have words for their feelings. Least of all gruff, quiet Zoro.  

Zoro has known the longest, of course. He’s known since the first day they met that there was something not quite right about Luffy. Something dangerous that has nothing to do with the devil fruit and everything to do with the scar that mars his youthful face.

It’s too fresh, too red and ragged to be old. And it never gets old. It never takes on the flat, healed quality. It doesn’t lighten into a kind silver. It stays that same ragged red , held together by stitches, for the first month he’s with him. And the second. And the third.

Zoro doesn’t know what it is about Luffy, but every instinct Zoro has tells him to run, run, run away. He’s in danger. Luffy is dangerous and it all comes from the scar on his face. Zoro asked, once, where it came from. Luffy laughed and told him he’d done it to himself. It wasn’t true, but Zoro is not willing then to push for more answers out his insane companion.

He’s staring straight at the scar when Zoro bares his teeth in a grin so feral is should put shivers down the spine of his captain when he declares that he’ll kill him if he gets in his way.

And Luffy. Luffy’s eyes light up and his whole face splits into a grin, twisting the scar into a sunny smile that does nothing to hide the darkness in it from someone like Zoro.

Zoro doesn’t know what he is. Doesn’t care.

Luffy is the captain and that’s that.


	2. Day 2 : Fear

DAY TWO : FEAR

Usopp notices, of course, but it’s hard to say in the beginning whether he gets the feeling from Luffy being so much stronger, so much more fearless and made of  _ Rubber  _ of all things, or if there really is something about him that lifts the hair on his arms.

He can’t explain it, but there’s a feeling in the air around Luffy that makes him want to draw back and run away with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

Of course, Zoro does the same thing. And so does Sanji, and even Nami if she loses her temper. So Usopp thinks nothing of it. Luffy is just like that.

And, Luffy is loyal. Loyal to fault. He’d never leave any of them, he pushes them to be better and they are, Usopp especially. Standing next to Luffy, his blood racing and his fear swelling under his ribs, but still standing, however shaky his legs are, he feels it.

Feels the potential to be what he dreams of.

Luffy makes him feel braver, just by being near.

Usopp could not ask for a finer captain.


	3. Day 3 : Teeth

DAY 3 : TEETH

Sanji knew there was something weird about Luffy as soon as he saw him. Looking into his eyes was like staring into a hurricane. It made him think of dark nights thrown through the sea, of water filling his lungs and of drowning. Drowning.

Then, Luffy smiled and the spell was broken and it was the sun coming out from behind the clouds and his teeth caught the light something fierce.

It’s his diet that gets Sanji next.

Meat, meat, always meat. Sanji tried, once, to feed everyone just greens for a while.

He vowed to never do so again. He’ll never forget waking up to take his turn on watching and finding Luffy leaned over the side of the boat, puking his guts out. His tan skin was paled in the half moon, his whole body was shaking and covered in sweat. Tears and snot kept falling into the ocean. He wasn’t throwing up vegetables. It was blood.

It was like a punch to gut.

Luffy had looked up when he heard Sanji approach and for the first time since meeting him Sanji saw them.

A flash in his mouth, under his lips. His straight teeth had tiny points to them.

Luffy wasn’t an omnivore like the rest of them. He was a carnivore.

Sanji doesn’t know what he is, but he adjusts the diets accordingly. No matter how much he whines about the meat and how hard it is to store so much and keep is fresh for later, he will do whatever it takes to keep his crew healthy and satisfied. And whatever it is that Luffy is, he’s learned to live with it.

Luffy is his captain, and he will take care of him.


	4. Day 4 : Monsters

DAY FOUR : MONSTERS

Nami can’t say exactly when she knew there was something about Luffy that wasn’t right something…. Other. He’s always been different. From the first time they met to when he followed her to Arlong Park and saved her home. She knew, then, that there was something otherwoldly about him.

Bellemere had told her, long ago, when she was young, that there were monsters in the world. They she must be weary of creatures of darkness and blood and disaster. She thought she knew what she meant when the fishmen arrived.

She was wrong.

The hat that fell on her head was too big. It fell almost into her eyes. In the shade of the brim, her heart, so full of anguish and fury, calmed. A sense of fierce joy and fearlessness swelled up inside her and she gasped, looked up.

Luffy didn’t look at her. The vow was made. A bond of his word that would never be broken.

She could see it, under his skin. With the hat as her sanctuary she saw the ripple of darkness in his face and the danger in the set of his teeth. Fishmen, humans, they had nothing on Luffy in that moment, nore any moment sense. Luffy wasn’t human. He was a monster.

Nevertheless, Luffy was Luffy. Luffy was her captain. No matter what else he was.


	5. Day 5 : S(c)ent

DAY FIVE : S(C)ENT

Chopper knows what Luffy is when he first sees him dragging himself up the cliff face. Blood on his hands, fingertips turned blue and desperation warring across his face. The scent hits him head on and for an instant, an instant Chopper stops dead where he is.

Wind howled through his fur and through his memories and he stared at the creature's eyes in front of him. He breathes in, and with the smell of danger and blood and predators on the horizon comes the smell of something else. Sickness. Sickness and blood, they are hurt and the danger goes limp and his eyes close but the smell won’t leave.

He runs to get doctorine.

He’s scared, of course he’s scared. Two of them are humans and one of them isn’t. He doens’t even know what he is. He knows what he smells liks but the one with the hat doesn’t have any fur or claws or even sharp teeth. He doesn’t understand.

Doctorine doesn’t either, but they’re patients. They are patients and Chopper is a doctor.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t run screaming when he finds out that the danger, Luffy, wants to eat him. Of course he does! He wants to eat him and the dangerous thing thinks he’s a monster, too.

But then, Luffy changes everything. He changes the whole world for Chopper. He wants him to come along. He fights for him and with him and they set off to save a princess and a kingdom and have adventures. Chopper has to ask him for the details, of course, so he can properly treat him. Blood type, organ placement, what’s different between him and humans and Reindeers? Luffy doesn’t know the answer to any of them, besides he only eats meat. Chopper finds most of the answers himself.

Sometimes, Chopper breaths too deep when he’s around Luffy and his heart stutters with fear and his muscles tense, ready to run. Sometimes he’s afraid Luffy has noticed.

Sometimes, he wonders if Doctor Hiluluk sent Luffy to him. A ship full of monsters, including their captain.  


	6. Day 6 : Red

DAY SIX : RED

“It’s the hat, isn’t it?”

Robin picks a day where the seas are calm and the air is warm and everyone else is gathered below deck and Luffy is on watch. Sitting on his special seat of the Merry’s head, his hat firmly in place and his smile, straight toothed now but not so in the dark of the night, is bared in a challenge to the world.

“My hat?” Luffy bends backwards at an impossible angle to look at her. Still the hat stays in place.

She wasn’t sure, when they first met all the way back in Whiskey Peak. She knew there was something unusual about the boy, besides the devil fruit. Then he found her under ground, where the light of the sun didn’t quite reach and his eyes weren’t as sunny and his teeth were as flat. The red ribbon on the hat had done it then. The slightest flash of light on silk when there was no light present.

She almost put it off as a trick of the light. But she saw him by moonlight, with the red ribbon shining fiercely under the sky and Luffy danced with wolves.

“Your hat. It keeps you human, doesn’t it?” she clarified.

Luffy’s face doesn’t change but his eyes do, the light in them changing until she can almost see his pupils. Then, they light right back up and he laughs.

Robin can’t keep herself from tensing. The intent had been blackmail, no one wanted to admit to being a monster, right? But Luffy laughs, flopping back and looking up at her with such carefree trust.

“You noticed that? You’re really smart, Robin!” he grins wide at her and Robin finds herself lost. Did he not care? “Yeah, you’re right. Shanks gave it to me, so I have to take really good care of it until I’m strong enough to give it back. Then I won’t need it anymore.”

“Oh?” she says, for else can she do. Luffy is not the men she had used and left to die in the past. He is not a man at all.

“Yeah! I’ll show you guys someday,” he promised, “Usopp and Chopper will be so loud, the scaredy cats!”

“That doesn’t bother you?” she asks, “That they’ll be scared.”

“Nah,” he smiles even wider at her. “We’re friends! We’ll be okay.”

Robin struggles not to stared at his unshakable faith in his crew, in his nakama. She knows then, that she’s come in too deep. She’s been here too long. She can’t blackmail him. He’s a monster on a different level even from herself and other devil fruit user. The only thing keeping the beast at bay is that hat on his head. She should leave.

She can’t.

Her captain, the only captain she will ever serve again, is a werewolf.


	7. Day 7 : Pumpkin

DAY SEVEN : PUMPKIN

 

It’s not that uncommon for Edward Newgate to have one of his sons on his knee, or his shoulder, or just sitting nearby. He’d wondered, for a long time, if Ace would ever feel comfortable enough to be one of those sons who sought him out for comfort.

He was happy to find that it didn’t take as long as he thought it would.

The October wind blew over the deck, lifting the glaringly orange hat almost off of Ace’s hat before he shoved it right back down. He hadn’t say anything when he’d come to sit, and Edward was willing to give him time to just sit quietly. If he didn’t want to talk to him, so be it, but Edward hoped that he would.

Ace breathed in audibly, tilted his head to the sun shining overhead and let out a breath that was halfway made of fire. They were almost to the next island, a fall island. He could already see the red and gold leaves on the trees that carpeted the mountain side, lifting out of the sea like a second setting sun.

“I love this time of year,” Ace said at last. “My brothers and I used to go out when the leaves were falling and we’d make piles and throw Lu in them.”

Edward looked down at him, quietly prompting him to continue while he filed this information away. He hadn’t known that Ace had more than one brother.

“We’d go in town sometimes, and the bakeries always had pumpkin pastries, breads, and cookies. We stole so many,” his smile was tender and far off, like it often was when he talked about his family. “And we carved jack’o lanterns. Lu sucked! His pumpkins always fell in on themselves.”

“You could make a jump to East Blue,” Edward offered, “You said he won’t leave home for another few months.”

Ace shook his head.

“He’ll get to the Grand Line. Then I’ll see him, when he’s a famous captain too.”

Edward didn’t argue with him. A promise between brothers was no his to interfere in. Still, he might be able to lessen the ache he could see growing in Ace’s eyes. He’d do anything for his sons, and this would be easy. He just needed to talk to Haruta about the finances of it.

~

Ace stretched his arms high above his head, popping his shoulders on his way out of the cabin and onto the deck. He didn’t usually sleep in, so it was weird when he walked out and into broad daylight. He had to blink a few time to clear his eyes of the sun glare, and a few more times after that to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

The whole deck of the  _ Moby Dick _ was covered in tarps laid flat, knives spoones, bowls and, taking up every available space, pumpkins. Hundreds of them.

Ace’s mouth fell open. He looked up at Whitebeard, sitting in his seat with the biggest pumpkin Ace had ever laid eyes on in front of him. A face already at work in its rind. Ace looked around him in marvel. It was amazing. Others were also cutting into their pumpkin, and someone was passing around candles and cinnamon.

Ace picked his way between fat pumpkins and half carves masterpieces towards his dad, a funny warmth starting to beat up under his ribs.

“Ace!” Whitebeard grinned down at him, “How are today, son?”

“I’m a little confused,” he admitted. “What’s all this for?”

“You said you did this with your family back on Dawn Island. I thought you might want to do it with your family on the Grand Line as well.”

The warmth under his ribs swelled and a smile bloomed across his face, stretching it with a wide smile. He picked up a pumpkin at his feet, just the right size and shape for the idea slowly blooming in his mind. He hugged it to his chest and smiled back up at his dad.

He managed to get one of the knives and a spoon, which were vastly outnumbered by the blades and set to work alongside Whitebeard. Before dusk there wasn’t a whole pumpkin left of the ship, and everyone had at least one Jack’o’lantern to their name. Most of them were the Whitebeard Jolly roger. Some were much more unique. Izo managed a perfect likeness of Whitebeards face. Jozu had carved off the orange in the shape of crack that revealed a white skull underneath. Thatch had made a weirdly details carousel.

Whitebeard had turned his into a traditional smile.

And Ace. Ace had put together a cowboy hat, a top hat, and a straw hat piled on top of each other.

 

It was good to be part of a family.

 


	8. Day 8 : Haunted House

DAY EIGHT : HAUNTED ~~HOUSE~~ SHIP

“And then we crashed down like BAM!” Luffy finished punching his fist into his hand.

Chopper gazed up at him in awe, his bright eyes wide under the brim of his hat. Luffy laughed when he saw it and spun back on his heel, going on the way. Nami had sent them out to pick up some supplies, and now the pair was on their way back to the  _ Merry _ . The leaves on this island were off of the trees and lay in piles of dead skeletons on the ground. It was a winter island,  that and’t seen any snow in the last month. People were already talking about a curse. Luffy though it was awesome, but kind of a lame curse.

The sun was already half way gone by the time they made it back to the docks.

Luffy lugged his massive bags up onto the deck and dumped there. He threw back his head and yelled.

“NAMI! WE”RE BACK!”

There was no reply.

Luffy frowned. He looked around. There was no one on deck. No one was in the crows nest. That wasn’t normal. He didn’t like that one bit. Where was his crew? Why weren’t they there waiting for him? Zoro wasn’t on deck with his weights, he couldn’t smell Sanji cooking anything in the kitchen, he didn’t hear Usopp tinkering with anything and Nami hadn’t come when he’d called. Her trees had been carefully covered in tarps as soon at they got there, and she wasn’t tending them, and she wasn’t demanding he give her the change left from the shopping trip.

“Chopper,” he said, some of his normal humor slipping from his voice, “Can you smell anyone else on the ship?”

Chopped looked up at him before he tilted his head further and breathed in deeply. Once, twice, thrice.

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s all old. No one else is here.”

Luffy squared his hat on his head and marched forwards. Chopper went below deck, to check for them there. They had to be somewhere right? None of them would just walk off and leave him and Chopper. He needed them! And they needed him! That’s what a crew was for!

Luffy climbed the mast to try and see out a distance. The sun finally drowned in the horizon. All he found was lights of the city they’d come from, and further down the beach someone had started a big bon fire.

“Lucky…” he mumbled. His stomach growled loudly.

A cold hand touched his shoulder. Luffy almost jumped, but he knew the presence like the back of his hand now. He looked over his shoulder at the small floating figure that hovered behind him in the crows nest. A little kid in a rain coat and no shoes. In her other hand was a small mallet. Luffy’s face split into a grin.

“ _ Merry _ !” he cried. Beneath them, as was wont to happen on nights when the full moon dared start to shine, other spectre’s appeared on deck.

A little girl that tended to stand next to Zoro. A woman with a rifle that had come with Nami. A lady in a crown that crooned softly over Sanji’s every meal. Most recently had come a man with wild hair that laughed loudly and praised Chopper’s work endlessly. There were two men with weird hair, but one of them was always with a lady with hair like snow and a face like Robin’s.

_ Merry _ appeared whenever it was dark enough too, but Luffy didn’t think anyone else could see her, or the others. He didn’t know why he could. It was a mystery!

“They’re down the beach,” she told him, pointing down where the fire was burning bright. The smile that softened her ghostly face felt like sea cast wind. “They’re waiting for you, Captain!”

“Huh? Why?” he cocked his head sideways.

“Because,”  _ Merry _ said, drawing the word out like Nami did when he was being silly. “It’s a party!”

Luffy’s whole face lit up. A party! He pulled away from  _ Merry _ and jumped, landing easily down on deck.

“Chopper!” he yelled, “I found them!”

Chopper came galloping out of the galley, breathing hard. “You did? Where?”

“They’re down the beach!” he pointed, almost smacking the funny man in the face. Chopper’s dad, he figured. Sometimes he wondered, if he could see Nami’s mom and Zoro’s rival and Robin’s parents and Sanji’s mother and Chopper’s dad, why didn’t he see his brother? Where was Sabo?

Off having his own adventures, probably. Or maybe with Ace. Either way, Luffy would see him some day.

Luffy waved to  _ Merry _ and took off down the beach at a run, kicking up sand and eating the ground in his long runners strides. The firelight warmed his cheeks and he bowled into Zoro, who caught him without even looking.

“About time you got here,” he said gruffly.

“Sorry, we didn’t know where you guys went!”

“Usopp was supposed to leave a note,” Nami said.

Usopp bristled. “Sanji was supposed to leave!”

“I thought Zoro was going to do it!”

“The witch said she would!”

“Don’t call Nami that!”

Luffy couldn’t help throwing his head back and laughing long and loud and free. He loved his crew, his Nakama, the living and the dead. Robin joined him, with her quieter laugh and her sparkling blue eyes.


	9. Day 9 : Zombies

DAY NINE : ZOMBIE

At some point, the world came to an end.

Ace knew this. Everyone knew this about the world. It was over. It had ended, the apocalypse had risen from cemetery and mortuary slabs and fire had lit the skies above. The infestation began, tiny abnormalities that burrowed into the skin and changed the people bellow.

The older folks were either killed by it and resurrected or nothing happened at all and they had to live with the corpses trying to kill them.

Ace wondered some days what it was like to exist before them. What the hollow towers of the cities looking like when they were filled with people instead of broken glass. What did they sound like before the windows were all broken and all that was left was the howl of dying animals through the cement. He didn’t know what the roads were like when they were paved regularly and not walled off on either side by cars that sat like long dead beasts.

 

He would never know. All because of his  _ father _ .

 

There was so much of the world that Ace was missing. Parents, community, history. Home. He had none of it. 

 

All he had was a high rise he had renovated, attached escape cables to and hidden weapons in, squirelling death away for winter when the packs of Dead walked through cities and the stench of rotting corpses permeated the air. 

 

It wasn’t winter, though, that fine day in july. The sun was brilliant, a ball of fire and light that beat down on Ace’s covered head mercilessly. The bright orange hat was a gift from his brother, before they’d had to split up years ago. 

 

The ache of grief had been patina’d by time and now whenever he looked at the hat he was filled with fondness and hope for Lu. Knowing him, he’d already amassed a bunch of loyal followers that would go through hell or high water for him. 

 

Ace had never been as good at collecting people as his brother. Luffy had a light about him, an aura that drew people in and held them in his orbit. Luffy was tenacious and irresistible. Ace was not. He was a little to angry, a little too jaded to really keep anyone around. He’d joined caravans before, conglomerated with other humans when he needed to, but that was it. He was better off on his own. He just couldn't risk anyone getting close enough to find out who he was. 

 

That day, he was alone, sifting through abandoned cars to try and scavenge some leather to fix up his boots. He’d need a new pair before long, but the closest Famous Footwear was more than a days walk away, and he wanted to avoid going that far from his sanctuary if he could. It was safer that way. 

 

Something moved, a few cars over. The sound was small, just the smallest scuff of sneaker on cement but it was enough to have Ace’s hand on the knife at his belt. He never bothered with guns. They were too loud and too unreliable. 

 

A head popped up on the other side of the street. There was a hood pulled up over someone’s head, purple. He could barely see a trace of blond sticking out from under it. 

 

Ace eased out of the care carefully. They’d probably heard him trying to rip up the seat anyhow, but he could try. He pulled the first few inches of his knife out of its holster. He coudln’t tell if the person was breathing. Their shoulders weren’t moving. Even if they were, humans weren’t always safe either. They stood across the dead road from him, hidden in an alleyway. 

 

The stranger spoke. 

 

“Hello?” 

 

“Hello?” Ace returned. He slowly made his way around to the hood of the subaru. The stranger, alive, apparently, shifted around to look at him. He coudln’t see much of their face under the shadow of the hood. 

 

“Why  _ hello _ ,” he could see their lips curve upwards. 

 

“Don’t get any ideas,” Ace warned. He knew that tone, and it was enough for him to thin a smile back, somewhere between weary and flattered. 

 

“Sorry,” the strange said, but he sounded like he was lying, “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here. There weren’t any other groups in the city when we got in. This isn’t how I was expecting the day to go.”

 

“Oh?” Ace kept a distance between them that was safe but as he moved forwards so did the stranger. Further out of the alleyway and closer to the light of the sun.

 

“No.” 

 

“You said ‘we’, there’s more of you?” Ace pressed. He was ready to bolt if he had to. 

 

“Yeah. My family and me,” the stranger said. Ace didn’t know his name. The stranger didn’t know his either. Ace grimaced. 

 

“I’m Portgas D. Ace, by the way. Pleased to meet you.” 

 

“Very polite,” this time the smile showed a few teeth. “I’m Marco Newgate.” 

 

“Marco. Hello,” Ace almost kicked himself. How many times had he said hello now? Too many times. Damn. 

 

Marco took him with good humor. 

 

“Hello,” he said in return. “We’re setting up down by the river. Good hunting, fresh meat, and a lot of mouths to feed. You can join us if you like.” 

 

“You just met me. And you want to have me for dinner?” 

 

For some reason Marco laughed loudly.  

 

“Yeah, why not?” 

 

“Because-” 

 

A growl interrupted them. Both of them stiffened. Ace looked to the side, tensing. He hadn’t heard them coming, he was too focused on Marco. And now there was at least a dozen dead walking towards them. They lumbered slowly, shuffling on rotting legs. Even from the distance Ace could see the green veins that crawled across their necks and surrounded their glass green eyes. 

 

“Shit,” Ace hissed. He lunged and grabbed Marco’s arm, giving him a tug. “Come on, this way. Fast!” 

 

“I can’t move fast,” Marco hissed. He stumbled when Ace pulled him, limping noticeably when he tried to move faster. 

 

“Just move faster than them,” Ace snapped, pointing to the oncoming pack of hunters. He couldn’t take twelve at once, and Marco was injured. Who sent out the injured man to scout?! Ace pulled him as fast as Marco could go, half hobbling half running in a shuffle that could have been a dance from the 90s. 

 

Ace dragged him halfway into his apartment building and slammed the door shut soundly. He knocked a bar in front of it and got Marco to follow him up to the stairwell. He shooed him onto a platform he’d rigged up and made quick work of lifting them with the levers and pulleys and ropes. 

 

“Fancy,” Marco said. He looked down wearily. 

 

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?” Ace teased. He brought them to a stop at the twelfth floor. He let Marco get off the makeshift elevator first. Before he hopped off and onto the landing. He’d knocked out most of the stairs bellow to keep any infiltrators out. 

 

“You gave me shit for asking you to dinner, now you’ve brought me back before even getting dinner?” Marco elbowed him lightly. Ace snorted and rolled his eyes. 

 

“Yeah, so what?” Ace narrowed his eyes at him. He unlocked the door and let Marco into his apartment. It wasn’t exactly neat or tidy, there were more weapons than anything else hanging out on counters, tables, and the floor. A metal pipe with blood stains still on it was propped up in the corner. 

 

Marco turned slowly, taking it all in. Ace let him, taking the chance to fetch a couple of cups of water. He kept his eye on Marco the whole time. Out the window he could still hear the small pack beating at his door. The dead were always more eager to meet him than anyone else. 

 

Marco thanked him for the water and drank it slowly. Ace struggled to come up with something to say and in the meantime took to staring. Marco was taller than him by a few inches, but not as broad in the shoulders. His hair, what stuck out from under his hood and covered most of his eyes, was blond and wild. His mouth was wide, a lower lip fuller than the one above but not badly. Whoever he traveled with kept him clothed. His family. What a novel concept. 

 

Ace squashed down the part of him that started to miss Luffy. 

 

“Have you been here long?” Marco finally broke the silence. 

 

“A few years. Not many people come here, and even less zombies.” 

 

Marco snorted. “Are you sure about that?” 

 

“Today is an exception,” Ace said with certainty. 

 

“Today might be a change. You should be careful,” Marco warned. 

 

“What make’s you think that?” Ace crossed his arms and leaned in so he could look Marco straight in the eyes. His heart stumbled to a stop. Bright green eyes, surrounded by green veins, stared down at him. 

 

The impossible smiled down at him. 

 

“The world isn’t always what you think, Golden boy.” 

 

Ace did what any reasonable person would do, when confronted with a speaking corpse that called him something no one else should ever be able to guess, let alone know. 

 

He stabbed Marco right in the stomach. 

 


	10. Day 10 : Raven

DAY TEN : RAVEN

 

_ The Raven,  _ she told them one evening as the sun was dying in the west,  _ is a bird to respect. They know your face, and your heart. So be kind to them, when you can.  _

 

It was Sabo that knew what the birds meant. Him and his fancy upbringing with his tutors and books and fancy people talking fancy things. It was Sabo that knew that they were carrion birds and that people thought they carried the spirits of the dead upon their backs. 

 

Even without that, Luffy thought he wouldn’t try to eat them. There was one that had been his friend on Dawn Island, for a long, long time. It brought him gold coins and shiny necklaces to add to the treasure hoard and it screamed loud when people were coming too close to where he was hiding when he ran from them in town. It found him and Ace sitting on the cliff, looking out over the sea and sat with them for a long time while the sun set and the world got dark. It was a lot darker after Sabo died. The raven fit that pretty well, Ace thought. 

 

Luffy was surprised when the raven came out to sea with him, but that was okay. It just meant he had another crew mate to stay with him. 

 

Luffy named him Cacciatore. 

 

Cacciatore liked to sit in Nami’s grove and pick though Usopps tools, but mostly he sat with Luffy on the  _ Merry’s  _ head, and later on  _ Sunny’s _ . 

Cacciatore was with them for all of their adventures, and even when everyone seperated, he came back to Sabaody at the same time as the rest of them. This time, he wasn’t alone. There were two Ravens. 

 

Cacciatore and Cowboy. 

 

If Luffy talked to the pair and used different names sometimes, everyone else was polite enough to ignore it. Give a captain his eccentricities, and give a boy his grief. 

 

~~~

 

“I’m going to kill him,” Ace told him the day the new doctor came on board. 

 

“No you’re not,” Sabo said blandly. 

 

“Yeah, I am. He’s going to drag Lu into some crazy adventure and get him almost killed and then I’m gonna kill him for it.” 

 

“Ace,” Sabo said with long practiced patience, “Lu get’s into shit all on his own. If anything he’ll be dragging Law into it. Besides, Luffy’s already decided. Law is his friend. And you know how he is about friend.” 

 

Ace scoffed, narrowing his beady black eyes at the Surgeon of Death. “I still don’t like him.” 

 

“Hush. Look, he’d got a flock of his own. Don’t you feel bad? He must know a lot of dead people,” Sabo pointed his beak to the four crows that flew onto the  _ Sunny  _ after Law. 

 

“Nope. We all know a lot of dead people. Lots of people know lots of dead people. Most people don’t get crows.” 

 

“Yeah. Just the ones with a lot of regrets.” He shot Ace a Look. Ace promptly took flight, soaring down to harass the weird gas man. 

 

One day, Sabo would be able to move on. After he saw Luffy crowned king. He wasn’t so sure Ace would be able to do the same thing. 

 

With that in mind he took off, beating his wings to soar up to the crows nest and keep a better watch. There was adventure in the air. 


	11. Day 11 : Moon

DAY ELEVEN : MOON

 

There was a tattoo on his boyfriends arm. 

 

Now, Law had a lot of tattoos himself. On his knuckles, on his arms, on his back and chest. Most of his skin was covered in some kind of ink. So it was not the tattoo existing that was unsualy to him or that drew his attention. Instead, it was the fact that he could never tell what it was. 

 

It was the moon. That much he was sure of. But he was never one hundred percent sure what phase it was in. He thought it was half full, or half empty, or a cresent. 

 

Sometimes it looked almost new, sometimes it was a breath from full. 

 

It took him a long time to admit to what he was seeing. At first, he passed if off as nothing more than a figment of his imagination. When they first met it was first day of june, a bar fight. He didn’t know who it was that was covered in red, he didn’t know the wild gold eyes and the painted mouth split into a grin that bordered on feral, but as he stood above the beaten bodies Law couldn't help picking his way across the ruined room and introducing himself. As a doctor, just interested in seeing to his wounds, of course. 

 

When they kissed it was all teeth and bruises and nails that dragged through skin. Law gave as good as he got and a pattern developed. 

 

The first day, he thought the moon was a waning crescent sitting on the hard lines of Kidd’s wrist. There was nothing about him that was soft, nothing about him that spoke of kindness or gentle inclinations. That was half of what drew Law to him. His vicious body and his mean streak, a mile and a half wide. After that it was his grim humor, matching up with Law’s in a way that no one else's quite did. They’re wit’s matched, their bodies slot together and before he knew it Law was in deep. 

 

Too deep. 

 

But back to the tattoo. The next time they met, the crescent was reversed, and bigger. Law dismissed it. He dismissed it a lot, as a trick of the light. Then he started taking pictures. Selfies, mostly, nothing that would get Kidd’s face in it. Eustace had an aversion to photographs. 

 

The tattoo changed. 

 

Law checked. It matched the phases of the moon perfectly. 

 

Trafalgar D. Water Law was not a man of superstition. He didn’t believe in monsters under the bed or fairy rings or magic spells. He believed in reason and logic, and the scientific process. 

 

And so, it began. 

 

Slowly, at first, Law started marking his suspicions. 

 

He checked out library books, asked tattoo artists and spent hours online. The general consensus was that he was dating a werewolf, or crazy. Law was pretty sure he wasn’t crazy. Not in that way, at least. He was also pretty sure werewolves didn’t exist. 

 

Which did not explain why he had twenty four tabs open on werewolf lore and a baker's dozen books on the same subject sitting around his house. 

 

He always made sure to hide them when he was going to see Kidd. There was never any telling where they would end up at the end of the night. Whose place, who’s bed, who’s dining room table. Against who’s window. 

 

The biggest proof he found was when Kidd sliced his arm open working in his shop and by the time Law was able to get a look at it, beyond Kidd’s fussing and arguments, it was too shallow and too small to warrant the amount of blood on his clothes. 

 

Even after all of his research and the creeping suspicion that he was dating a monster of a different sort than he’d thought, Law still texted him the time to come to dinner and set the table. It was, technically, their anniversary, but neither of them were the type to celebrate that kind of thing. So he didn’t go all out or light candles. 

He laid out dinner, pannfisch on a bed of cabbage, set the table and waited. 

 

Law wondered sometimes what Kidd thought of his apartment. It was vast opposition to the adjoining house stuck to a workshop, that he shared with a blond that Law had never seen in more than passing. Contrary to the cluttered house that smelled distinctly of oil and copper and pine, Law’s upscale apartment was straight lined and new furniture. It wasn’t lived in, it was pristine and sensible. Fine but not excessively so. 

 

Law was a top surgeon. He could afford anything, but there was no point in spending money on a place where he rarely even was. The hospital took up most of his time. 

 

Kidd took up the rest. 

 

No one knocked on the door and it didn’t squeak but Law knew that Kidd had come in. He filled the room just by being in it, his presence inescapable and massive. Lesser men would bow beneath it, but Law thrived within it, fighting and grasping and sometimes even laughing, just with the thrill of it. Kidd reminded him he was  _ alive _ . 

 

He didn’t turn when he felt the heat of Kidd’s bulk buffer against him. Law always felt cold. Cold and still, his hands steady no matter what he was doing. Surgeons hands. 

 

Kidd ignited a churning ember under his ribs, a lick of fire in his stomach. 

 

He looked over his shoulder, mouth spread in a challenging flash of teeth. 

 

“You’re late.” 

 

“Fuck you,” Kidd poked him in the small of his back. “Let’s eat.” 

 

“You have no manners. What were you raised by wolves?” 

 

Law ignored the thrill that shot through his head and made his fingertips tingle when Kidd’s broad shoulders brew together and his cheek twitches in something that broke his cocky grin. 

 

His eyes, a gold that Law had never witnessed in humans before, narrowed minutely at him. Law met them head on, waiting. Kidd, as always, ran out of patience first. 

 

“You’re just as bad. I thought doctors had bedside manner, but you’re just an asshole.” 

 

“I’m a surgeon,” he said dryly. “My patients are all unconscious. If they’re lucky. If they aren’t they get to listen to my music.” 

 

“You have shitty taste in music,” Kidd said frankly. 

 

“I’m surprised you can hear anything with the crap you blast. Sit your ass down, Eustace.” 

 

A thrill shot up his spine when Kidd bared his teeth and took a threatening step towards him. “Don’t call me that.” 

 

Law lifted his middle finger between them. “Shut up and eat your cabbage.” 

 

Kidd moved to shoulder past him and sat at the table petulantly. Law sat across from him and started in on the fish, and for a minute he wondered if Kidd’s pride would override his stomach. Kidd gave in at last and picked up a fork. 

 

He howled and dropped it immediately, gripping his hand to his chest. Law’s head snapped up to stare at him with wide eyes. Steam came off of Kidd’s hand in waves, billowing up. A feral glow, pain and anger, burning in his eyes. 

 

Law stood, dropping his fork and knife and moving to Kidd’s side in one long stride. He shoved his hand in front of Kidd. 

 

“Let me see,” he ordered shortly. 

 

“Fuck you,” Kidd said promptly. 

 

“Let me see,” he said again. Kidd hadn’t been kidding about his bedside manner. Law struggled to soften himself. “I’m a doctor. Let me see, Kidd.” 

 

Kidd  eyed him distrustfully for a long, long time before he finally turned over his hand. The steam had finally settled, but what was left was lines of charred skin where the fork had touched him. That didn’t make sense, though. What would the fork- 

 

Silver. It was silver. 

 

Law opened Kidd’s fingers slowly, taking stock. There was two stripes of dead skin on the outside edge of the pointer finger and two matching strips that touched the middle and forefinger together. The pad of his thumb and one knuckle were the same. 

 

“How does it feel?” 

 

“How the fuck do you think? It hurts!” 

 

“Good. Then you still have nerves. That means it looks worse than it is. Don’t punch me.” 

 

Law brushed his thumb across Kidd’s burn skin. His new ‘patient’ snarled. He didn’t sound human. Law ignored him. He could feel under the dead skin something pushing up. It pulsed with Kidd’s heartbeat. 

 

“What’s the prognosis?”

 

“That you watch to many hospital drama’s. The  _ diagnosis  _ is that it’s a third degree burn. You’ll need a skin graft. At the hospital.” 

 

“Hell no!” Kidd yanked his hand away. Law let him, watching the regret when he bumped the burns together and the pain struck again. If he felt the pain that much, it would only be the top couple of layers that were dead, and beneath that the skin was alive. Good for Kidd. Good enough that, maybe, if they didn’t it right… 

 

“You need to come with me to the hospital so we can treat it. If that gets infected, you’ll be in trouble. I’ll do everything, but I’m not properly equipped here for it,” Law spoke slowly, with more patience than he normally alotted a stubborn patient. 

 

“I’m not going to a hospital. Fix me here,” Kid moved to cross his arms stubbornly before he thought better of it and glared. The thrill that came from the glare before was gone. Law was all business now. He frowned. 

 

He couldn't force someone, especially not someone of Kidd’s size and temperment, to submit themselves to real medical care. Why did he have such stubborn people in his life? 

 

He really shouldn’t. But, Law thought of the accident weeks ago. The cut on his arm, the blood, bright as his hair, too much for what Law found. He’d never gone to a hospital then, either. Law stared hard at him.

 

“It still might get infected and you’ll be in a lot of trouble.” Law could lose his liscence. This was a stupid idea.  

 

Kidd looked straight at him. 

 

“Do it.” 

 

Law took him to the bathroom and fetched his doctors bag. He didn’t use it often, but his instruments were sharp and well cared for. The white leather was cool as he slid his fingers across it and undid the padlock. He flipped the lid open and got started. He cleaned his hands with alcohol gel and pulled on sterile gloves. While he worked he talked, going over the basics. Height, weight, allergens, medical history, past addictions.

 

He held Kidd’s hand still when he pushed a needle with barely any diamorphine in it under the skin. Working with mental math and the wrong equipment made his skin crawl .It was sloppy and unprofessional. 

 

Law picked up a pair of small scissors. 

 

“Look at the ceiling,” he told Kidd, and got started. Kidd kept twitching while Law was entirely sure and steady. He held his fingers steady while he cut away the dead skin. Like he thought, it wasn’t as deep as it looked. Fluid seeped sluggishly from the wound. 

 

Law was quick about disinfecting it and laying a thin layer of plastic over the open flesh before he wrapped it in tape. To an outside it looked professional. To a renoun perfectionist it was a mess. Law’s fingers itched with the desire to replace the damaged flesh with new, living skin and properly neutralize the potential infection. 

 

Law pushed Kid’s sleeve up until he could see the moon that painted, nearly full, on his wrist. He felt the muscles tense under his hold. Almost full. Another night. Silver burns and gold eyes. 

 

Law looked up and stared straight into the eyes of a wolf. 

 

“Busy tomorrow night?” 

 


	12. Day 12 : Bat

DAY TWELVE : BAT

 

Nights were often quiet these days.

 

Franky liked them. It meant he could keep his window open at night without worrying about catching a cold and getting in trouble with Chopper. It also meant his little friend could come hang out and watch him work.

 

Even though everyone was loud during the day and rambunctious as always during breakfast and lunch and dinner by the time night fell and shadows grew longer his crew set in for the night. Even Luffy stopped chattering long enough to snore.

 

It was in these dark hours that the small creature winged through his window. Her wings were thin and elegant in their long fingers and tight skin. Her muzzle was fuzzy and her eyes were bright.

 

Franky opened a slot in his chest and let her fly inside and perch on the pole he’d made there. When he’d joined up and when they’d started this, whatever it was, he hadn’t known about a few _peculiarities_ that his little bat had.

 

She hung from a perch near his heart, where he felt she belonged, watching him work and listening to him talk and sing sometimes. When he finally put his tools away she flew out of the space he’d carved for her and landed on his shoulder.

 

Short furry body twisted in a fluid flash of smoke and shadow. Long legs tucked against the bulge of his shoulder socket and arms that pulled from wings folded over his head. A small curtain of black hair brushed his blue buzzcut.

 

“Time for bed?” she asked, a low whisper that hung around his ears like a blanket.

 

“Are you staying?” He tilted his head enough he could wink at her from behind his sunglasses.

 

Robin kissed the crown of his forehead and he imagined he could feel sharp fangs behind her soft lips.

 

“Not tonight.”

 

He wasn’t surprised. She rolled off of him, falling through the air and changing in the middle of it, transforming before she hit the ground.

 

Franky watched the bat fly out his window again, into the star studded sky and wondered not for the first time if he would ever fly with her. 


	13. Day 13 : Crossroads

DAY THIRTEEN : CROSSROADS

 

Nami thought that the devil had red eyes.

 

She was wrong.

 

The heater was on full blast in the car but she still felt the icy chill that crept inside of her as she stared into the pale blue eyes that watched her from outside the window.

 

Everything inside of her said to throw the car in gear and tear out like bat out of hell, pun not intended. Get away from the woman that stood, dressed to kill, in the middle of the crossroads. Watching Nami. Waiting.

 

Nami swallowed thickly, stared at those pale eyes instead of endless stretch of legs bound in fishnets or the deceptively delicate collar bone framed in violet lace. The smile on the woman’s face came so close to being gentle, but it didn’t touch her eyes. Not at all.

 

Nami shoved the door open and stepped into the night air. The chill sunk straight through her denim jacket. She shoved her hands in her pockets to stop them shaking.

 

“Are you ready to talk now?” the demon asked. Her lovely alto floated through the air and burrowed into Nami’s ribs. Nami nodded shortly, a single dip of her chin. A few strands of orange lifted and floated across her face.

 

“Yes. Thanks for waiting,” she struggled to remember her manners. Address the demoness with respect. She didn’t know that it would help, but it wouldn’t hurt.

 

“I have nowhere else to be tonight. What can I do for you, miss?”

 

“Nami,” she carefully omitted her surname. “Is there something I can call you?”

 

“Nico Robin,” said the blue eyed demon. “What are you after, miss Nami?”

 

“My mother. She died. I want her back.”

 

Something in the demonesses eyes changed. The ice didn’t thin or melt but a spark appeared somewhere within them.

 

“You mother. What would you give, for your mother?”

 

Nami swallowed hard. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Looked straight into blue eyes. Not red, like she’d braced for. Blue. Blue and distant as the skies above. Blue and dangerous as the deepest ocean.

 

“Anything.”

 

Thin fingers lifted her chin and Nami took in a swift breath. They were so close. Robin was so cold, ice radiating off of her. It was sucking all the warmth out of Nami’s blood.

 

“Say that again, and we’ll have a deal.”

 

“Anything.”

 

Soft, cold lips met her and stole her breath and sole away. Nami’s eyes closed and she leaned forwards, her hands fluttering for something to grasp. They fell through open air and she stumbled forwards, falling to her knees.

 

When her eyes opened she was alone, sitting on skinned knees in the middle of a crossroads.


	14. Day 14 : Grave

 DAY FOURTEEN : GRAVE

 

Ace had found that most people were not like he was.

 

Most people lacked his will, his temper, his raw physical strength. Most people lacked his vicious loyalty and inexplicable ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime, whether he wanted to or not.

 

Most people also shared, among everyone who was not him, the ability to stay in their goddamn graves.

 

Not Ace.

 

It didn’t make sense.

 

He didn’t have regrets to keep him tied to the physical world. There was nothing left to do that he hadn’t already done that he needed to do. He didn’t eat any devil fruit that would give him this particular side effect.

 

And yet….

 

And yet he woke up. In the dark.

 

Ace was quite used to waking up in strange places. It wasn’t even the first time he’d woken up in a box. He knew, instinctively, that this wasn’t a crate he’d stowed away in or a tranferance from one cell to the other.

 

This was his coffin, and he was awake inside of it.

 

A passerby screamed when he clawed his way free of the dirt, half fire and mostly skin and dirt and grass that fell into the clothes they’d buried him in. A shirt with Whitebeards symbol on the back, to replace the one that had been burned off.

 

Ace took the time catch his breath while the witness ran off and brought back a pack of unhappy campers, but by the time the mob with pitch forks arrived Ace was gone, running swiftly towards where he could hear the ocean. He needed a ship.

 

He needed a way to find his family.


	15. Day 15 : Amulet

DAY FIFTEEN : AMULET

For once it wasn’t Luffy that got them in trouble.

 

It was, of all people, Sanji.

 

Sanji, who saw the pretty rock and brought it back to the ship for Nami, heedless of what lived inside it. It wasn’t until after dark that the amulet took effect.

 

It glowed dimly in the night, then brighter and brighter until the glow encompassed the ship entirely.

 

When it faded, everything was different and nothing at all.

 

Sunny was fine, the lion head still golden when the sun rose the next morning. Her trees still rustled in the salty sea breeze and her sails swelled full with the wind that blew. It was not sunny who the amulet’s light twisted and cracked and pulled in on herself.

 

It was her crew.

 

Robin, the bird, was the first one to fall out of her hammock. Her usual long limbed grace had vanished and into place was a clumsiness that came only from short limps and stumbled almost flat onto her face.

 

She pushed herself up, slowly, and stared down at her hands.

 

Not hands, but small fuzzy paws.

 

Nami sat up slowly in her bed, stretching luxuriously. The cats eye amulet hung proudly around her fuzzy orange throat.

 


	16. Day 16 : Eyeball

DAY SIXTEEN : EYEBALL

 

Zoro knew it would happen one day.

 

The Grand Line was full of strong people who would push the crew to their limits. He just hadn’t expected for Nami to be the one with him when it happened. Luffy would be fine, he wouldn’t give too shits. Sanji, great, they already hated each other(not really). Robin would be fine, even Usopp.

 

But no, it was the witch.

 

A weather witch, she’d gotten stronger too. Zoro tried to think of what things would have been like before if they’d met and she was as strong as she was now. He’d been helpless already, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

 

Stronger, but not strong enough to beat Spatch. Zoro wasn’t either. Even together, lightning and wind and steel, they were pushed back and beaten bloody. Spatch, one of Kaido’s men, was some sort of giant bird that only kicked with hard claws and strong legs. His feathers, whatever they were made up, couldn’t be cut through by any caliber attack, haki blackening what white fluff there was. Zoro knew one of his arms was already broken. A few ribs, too.

 

Nami had taken a harder hit. Her climatact lay in pieces next to her. Spatch stood above her, frozen in time the way opponents sometimes where. His leg was lifted towards his feathered torso, sharp claws pointing downwards. Straight at Nami’s chest.

 

Her legs were bent wrong. One of her eyes was swollen shut and he could see the beginnings of a bruise, red for now but sure to turn all the colors of a sunrise, inching out of her tube top. He tried not to think of how much internal bleeding she had.

 

The thing in his eye pulse hot. Zoro pushed himself to his feet slowly. He stabbed one sword into the ground in front of him and took up another.

 

Shusui, heavy and temperamental, agreed with his plan and slid into her sheath without the usual fuss. She didn’t like being left out of a fight, but her weight wasn’t something Zoro could afford. Hers was not the strength he needed.

 

Wado, beautiful and precious and the most sensible out of all of them, hissed her warnings to him in the sound of her blade sliding home. She reminded him of why they did this in the first place. Of what happened fifteen months ago. Of Perona’s hard work and Mihawks rule.

 

Zoro touched her in his apology. He knew. But he was a pirate. Rules were made to be broken. More importantly, it was Nami. His Nakama.

 

Kitetsu fit into his hand gladly and sang with understanding. He knew well Zoro’s heart. The bloodlust washed through his bones.

 

Zoro closed his eyes and breathed in, drawing the world into himself and letting it out.

 

He opened his left eye.

 

The world was red and black, save Nami and Spatch who glowed pale blue with their human souls. Death stood beside Spatch and Nami. Bone hands gripped a long scythe in front of him. His eyes stared back at Zoro, pinpricks of red that bored into his very soul. His lungs contracted. His heart stopped beating.

 

Zoro lifted Kitetsu with hands that had stopped being blue and were steadily blackening and swung.

 

Spatch collapsed on the floor. His eyes were gone. He did not bleed.

 

Zoro slid Kitetsu into his sheath with hands that were numb. He closed his eye again, ignoring the step Death had taken towards him.

 

A step closer to his end.

 

Zoro covered his eyes wide his hands and tried to remember how to breath. He needed to breath, if he was going to shout for Chopper.


	17. Day 17 : Scarecrow

DAY SEVENTEEN : SCARECROW

 

_There was a scarecrow that hung crucified in a cornfield on Cornball Island. Once, there were hundreds of them, but over the years they had slowly fallen apart in the disregard of those they guarded fields for. This scarecrow watched one after another of his kinsmen tear and bleach in the sun and catch fire. Fall from their perches and collapse on the ground._

_The murders came in clouds, tearing asunder the once bountiful fields._

_Resentment grew in the scarecrows heart, growing until he found the strength to take himself down from his hooks. With the sun gone there was no one to see the scarecrow walk at midnight, and no one to see him cut down the farmer and his wife. And their neighbors, the people of the town until only the harbormaster, who had locked his doors at night, was left._

_He was alone, with only a scarecrow covered in blood for company._

 

“So that’s where everyone else on the island went,” the harbor master said. “You pirates should get out of here while you can.”

 

Ace looked out over the corn field, to the scarecrow hanging up. He could see from the beach that the thing was covered in blood.

 

“Oh,” he said. Then pointed at the thing and lit it on fire.

 

He wasn’t totally sure, but he thought he could hear it screaming.


	18. Day 18 : Black

DAY EIGHTEEN : BLACK

 

It was Robins hair and Sanji’s legs. It was Zoro’s eyes and Usopps weapon. It was Luffy’s heart.

 

He didn’t think that any of them had noticed.

 

He was, for them, all smiles and sunshine and hope. It was a desperate hope, a hope that if he buried the blackness deep enough inside his ribs that no one would ever see. The heart was supposed to be red. Full of blood and love and fire.

 

Luffy’s heart only burned when he battled.

 

His crew didn’t need to know that darkness that lived with in him.

 

They knew he was selfish. They accepted he was stubborn and impulsive.

 

Luffy didn’t know if they would accept how easy it was for him to do the atrocious things that they shied away from. It was a careful secret.

 

Law found it.

 

Luffy say in front of him, legs crossed, staring hard at the man in front of him. Law held the small beating organ in his palm, suspended carefully in a small box between his long fingers.

 

“I’ve never seen a smaller, blacker heart,” Law told him, his mouth curving upwards. “Who knew you had it in you?”

 

Luffy narrowed his eyes at him.

 

Law’s smile grew wider. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. As long as you keep your word, that is.”

 

“I was going to anyway,” Luffy crossed his arms over his chest and pouted at Law. If his eyes held any light to them, he would have looked cute. Since there was none, it was a mockery. Dangerously accurate.

 

“I’m just taking precautions.”

 

“I’d never betray a friend,” Luffy snapped.

 

Law’s eyes widened a fraction. A bead of red appeared in the tiny black heart.

 

“Oh,” he said.

 

“Give it back!” Luffy held out his hand expectantly.

 

Law turned his heart over in his fingers, flicking the box around. His smile didn’t dim and a light sparked in his dim grey eyes. Luffy wondered, idly, if his heart was just as black.

 

“I don’t think I will,” he said, and slipped Luffy’s tiny black heart into his pocket.


	19. Day 19 : Mask

DAY NINETEEN : MASK

Once upon a time…

All the good stories started like that. Once upon a time in a far away kingdom, there lived a prince. This prince had a love. She had blond hair and kind eyes and soft hand that smoothed the frown lines from between his eyes.

 

The prince’s love was his mother.

He had never known love before her, nor with anyone else. Not his father and not his brothers. Not even his sister, who was kind in her own way, knew how to love. His mother taught him. Be kind to ladies, keep them confortable and sustained and do not interfere when they choose to stand for what they want.

He locked these words in his heart.

When his mother died, his father locked him away too.

In the darkness, with naught but cold steel to cover his face and thin clothes to shelter his body from the cold of the caves beneath their castle. The prince was kind, he was soft, he was everything his mother wanted him to be.

His father dispised this.

And so he was locked away, deep in the darkness. Where no one else would ever find him. In the end, the mask outlasted the little prince, and hung off of his bones when the king forgot he must be fed.


	20. Day 20 : Skeleton

DAY TWENTY : SKELETON

 

Everyone had skeletons in their closets.

 

Colette knew this. Everyone had something that could be exploited, twisted, and used for the benefit of one who knew what they were doing. And there was no one who knew better how to twist a human heart than Colette. She had spent her whole life doing it for herself, doing it for a sweet price and even better, her freedom, was easy.

 

She had no loyalty to the Straw hat pirates. She didn’t care about Luffy and his bright smiles and vague promises to help her get home, as if she really were lost.

 

No, all she cared about was his things. His secrets. His deepest, darkest hidden vices.

 

Or Sanji. What did he have, besides the frilly pink dress in his chest of drawers? Usopp, what did he do with the long nosed mask tucked under his work bench? What secrets did Robin have? What was Franky’s real name?

 

Yes, everyone had skeletons in their closet. Even the straw hats.

 

Colette crept quietly through the shadows on the _Thousand Sunny_ , minding that she didn’t make any noise as she slowly eased the closet door in the mens room open.

 

A skeleton looked up at her, a tea cup in one hand.

 

“Oh! Hello. I’m glad someone finally found me, I’ve been locked in here so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have sun on my skin. Only, I don’t have skin. SKULL JOKE!”

 

Colette slammed the door closed and turned on her heel, walking swiftly away.

 

Everyone had skeleton in their closet. Her contract didn’t stipulate real ones.


	21. Day 21 : Witch

DAY TWENTY ONE : WITCH

 

She could be found on the corner. Any corner, in any city. A flash of orange, a smile that was = vicious and eyes that shone with the promise of jewels to be gained and lost all over.

 

Everyone knew her name and no one knew it in turn. She was Nami, and that was all. Nothing more nothing less, she belonged to no man, no city, no country.

 

He knew he was desperate when he went to her.

 

He’d promised, so long ago, that he would never do something this stupid, this reckless. He’d sworn to stay away from magic. The would be easier if he couldn’t feel it. In the air, in the water, in his skin, he knew instinctually where it was around him. Curses, spells, blessings all he didn’t need to see them to know they were there and to know what they were.

 

That was how he knew she was on the corner when he walked out of the house that morning, a long sword held firmly in hand and his eyes set forwards. His phone buzzed in his pocket, an update from the hospital. He needed to come. He needed to say goodbye.

 

He walked forwards with purpose.

 

He would not say goodbye. He would not. Not to Luffy, not because of some stupid fight that he should have been there for.

 

He tried to see beyond the image of his friend, his best friend, who he would walk into hell for strapped to a bed in the hospital, hand cuffs on one wrist and a respirator stuffed down his throat. His bright eyes shut instead of shining with mirth.

 

For him, he would break his promise.

 

He turned the corner.

 

She sat on an overturned trash can. If you could see past the unnatural shade of her hair and the way her pupils were not quite right and the set of her shoulders, not human, not really, it would be easy to dismiss her as just another teenage out for a smoke.

 

She flipped a coin in the air. Light sparked off of it, threatening to blind him for an instant.

 

Zoro stepped into the shadows.

 

“Witch,” he said.

 

“That’s rude,” she told him, pouting. It was deceptively innocent. He set his jaw. “You know I was in the other alley right? Why’d you come down here?”

 

Zoro’s brows furrowed. He knew he had a bad sense of direction, but he was certain this was where she was. “You’re here,” he pointed out, “So this is the right place.”

 

“Only because I came here she frowned at him. “Whatever. What are you going to offer me for your friends life?”

 

And that was it, wasn’t it? What was he going to give her for Luffy’s life? For his smiles and his laughter and his thin arms around Zoro’s neck.

 

Zoro held out the sword he’d brought with him. The white sheath was pure and unblemished. He’d cared for it diligently after it had been gifted to him. Another death. This one, he could fight. Even if it wasn’t in a way he liked.

 

“Everything,” he said.

 

Her eyes opened a fraction wider. Her mouth lost its smug smile.

 

“I’ve been offered a lot,” she told him slowly, “But never everything.”

 

“Is it enough?” he insisted, stepping closer. Lesser men would have shrunk from his broad shoulders and his wild eyes.

 

Nami the witch just looked at him. She stepped closer and snatched from him, not the sword more precious to him than his very soul, but an earing from his left ear. The gold sat in her palm, small and so insubstantial compared to what he’d come to barter with and for.

 

“It’s enough,” the witch said.

 

His phone went off again. He pulled it out and looked down at the screen. It read three words.

 

_Luffy is awake._

 

When he looked back up, Nami the witch was gone.

 


	22. Day 22 : Black Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where I read too much poe.

DAY TWENTY TWO : BLACK CAT

 

He had walled the monster up in the tomb and now it came to haunt him.

 

He had made her, formed her, broken her and built her up based on a tiny talent in her tiny body and now he was paying for it. There was nowhere she could not follow him and now where he would be safe from her.

 

The tides changed and so too did she.

 

The season changed and with it came the cold wind of vengeance on the horizon.

 

He escaped the prison and hid his crimes. He left behind what he had been to become something new but even still he could feel her shadow at his back.

 

And then, one day, she appeared again. A noose tightened around his neck. A long staff was in her hand.

 

He was old. His youthful strength and righteous rage had faded, leaving him greying in his twilight and still she was there. The monster he had walled in the tomb.

 

Black Cat burgler took his life and avenged her fallen mother.


	23. Day 23 : Woods

DAY TWENTY THREE : WOOD

 

Fear was, for humans, natural. Important.

 

It was fear that drove them to grow. To create and build and become more than what they were before. It was fear that kept them from straying from the paths and into the dark, dangerous parts of the woods where awful creatures lived and danger lurked for the unwary.

 

It was fear that ensured that she lived in solitude.

 

It was fear that she was grateful for. Sometimes. Sometimes…

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“We shouldn’t be here,” Usopp hissed loudly. His hands were wrapped around a slim arm in a vice grip, holding tight to the arm of his companion.

 

“Aw, but it’ll be fun!” Luffy said, a fearless grin splitting across his face.

 

“The woods are cursed!” Usopp insisted. Luffy, true to form, just laughed him off like nothing could go wrong. Even though things went wrong almost all the time, with Luffy that was okay. With Luffy, they didn’t die.

 

But, that was usually sneaking into the abandoned mill, not the forest that ate people and spit out human pretzels when it was done! 

 

“You can stay,” Luffy said, and marched right ahead.

 

Usopp was left at the edge of the wood, knees knocking loudly together. Where was Zoro when he needed him? He could always talk sense into Luffy.

 

Luffy, meanwhile took his time walking through the woods, humming a cheerful song he was making up as he went. The forest was dark and dangerous, blackened and half burnt with only a few plants poking greenery through the ashy floor and tiny saplings growing up in the shadow of the corpses of their ancestors. He could hear the birds singing and deer tracks marked next to the river here and there, so he wasn’t scared. Where animals lived, people could to!

 

It was quiet, besides all that. Too quiet.

 

Luffy walked a few more feet before he threw his head back to glare at the canopy.

 

“I’m BORED!”

 

“If you don’t leave the woods now, you won’t be for much longer.”

 

Luffy looked sideways and found a lady sitting on a large rock covered in moss. She was dressed all in black, except for a little red scarf that hung down her neck to her chest. She was perched on the stone with light boned grace.

 

“Are you the curse?” Luffy asked. He walked right towards her, climbing over a half rotted log until he was standing close enough to looked at her face better. Her eyes were far away and he could see a sadness in them, even though a funny smile was on her face.

 

“I am. I am the curse of Ohara Wood.”

 

“Hmmm… you don’t look like a curse. Do something!”

 

Her eyes narrowed and he saw a spark of anger in them. The curse crossed her arms over her chest with her hands pointed skywards. Luffy yelped in surprise when, a second later, he was laying on the ground with his arms yanked hard behind him.

 

There wasn’t a snap or a crack or a pop of bones. Just the vague sound of his skin stretching.

 

“What- What are you?” the curse asked.

 

“I’m Monkey D. Luffy!” He lifted his head to bare his teeth at her. He looked at her, at her eyes. “I’m gonna be your friend.”

 

“Oh,” she said. “No.”

 

“Yes,” he pulled himself back up, rubbery limbs pulling back to their usual shape. He sat on the ground, feet together and head cocked slightly to the side. “Yeah. Definitely. You should meet my other friends, they’ll like you to!”

 

“I can’t have friend,” she said, “I’m a curse.”

 

“Well I am too, but I have lots of friends.” He stuck his finger in his ear. “So come be our friend. Don’t you get lonely in the woods?”

 

“I belong here,” the curse said, “this is my home.”

 

“So?”

 

“So I can’t leave it! I have to protect the wood, if I don’t Humans might come in and-“

 

Luffy lifted his head higher to look at her. He pushed himself to his feet and brushed his hands on his shorts. He stood up in front of her, smiling once more.

 

“Well that’s what friends are for. To help you protect what’s important. Haven’t you had a friend before?”

 

The curse shook her head slowly, blue eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. Still, there was a light there that hadn’t been there before.

 

“Then we’ll teach you. You don’t have to leave, we can come here. Right here,” he pointed to the ground. “What’s your name?”

 

The curse didn’t relax, but she didn’t try to break his neck either. “Nico Robin. Curse of Ohara.”


	24. Day 24 : Clown

DAY TWENTY FOUR : CLOWN

 

No one was ever supposed to see him like this.

 

Never. No one knew, except for the captain and that was exactly how Buggy had wanted to keep it. Captain Roger knew, that was how he’d found him in the first place. Crouched on bloodied tiles, people screaming all around him and he, a tiny scrap of a thing then so strong and so weak at once and Captain Roger took one look at a nightmare and laughed with joy, no fear or mockery.

 

He laughed, and laughed and Buggy wanted to cry. Weep tears for a sound he’d never heard before, one that cut him to the bone and opened his chest to something he’d never known.

 

He followed him on the ship, a long shadow and whenever they made to land he vanished off the boat again.

 

When they got Shanks, a bright boy with hair that flashed like fire in the sunlight and eyes that had the same spark as the captains Buggy knew things would change. If only because Shanks _Looked at him_. The others, they knew he was there. He was family, they would fight for him, they would bleed for him and he for them but it was different. It was different with Shanks because Shanks had a way of staring at Buggy like he was tracing the lines of an unravelling sweater.

 

For months, almost a year he’d been able to slip away into the shadows of the docks, vanish into the shadows and find someone to make scream. The longer they were at sea the more horror he left in his wake and the fast he left the ship.

 

So fast, this time, he got sloppy. He messed up. He knew that as soon as he heard a soft, trembling, “Buggy?” from the doorway.

 

He sat on a table. Multiple limbs were clinging to the slick surface of the granite and a web spread out behind him. A dozen eyes rolled away from the children screaming on the floor and steady pulses of green energy pulling towards him in thick ropes to the light that shone in from the door way.

 

Black eyes stared right at him, confused and weary and a sword was in hand.

 

Buggy felt the change. It twisted his limbs from eight to four, his morphed his face from mandibles to a mouth. The thick black carapace that had covered his squishy insides switched outwards, willing out with skin while the hardness of bones stuck themselves inside the new muscles. Ropey, bulging arms. He was tall, standing a shadow as features flashed across his face. The web fell across his face in thin crimson veil.

 

Terror, so different from the fear of children seeing a giant spider, hit him like a train. He breathed it in, dragged the sustenance into his lungs and filled his belly off of Shanks. Buggy consumed it voraciously, taking a step towards the suddenly so small boy before him.

 

Shanks was a teenager. He was strong. Buggy had seen him fight off men three times his size and cut down pirates that would make grown folk shit themselves.

 

Before Buggy, though, he suddenly seemed so small. Tiny and helpless, a child, a human rather than a pirate and one of Rogers’ crew.

 

His small voice cracked into a trembling soprano.

 

“Dad?”

 

Buggy spat Shanks’ distress out of his mouth and breathed in harsh air. He fell to his knees, overwhelmed with his suddenly sated hunger and the punch of guilt and mourning that turned his full belly. The red hair vanished and short fells of blue too its place. The spot of red, which was always there no matter what his form took, appeared in his peripherals.

 

Shanks stared at him, shaking from head to toe. There were tears pricked in his eyes.

 

“What are you?” he asked.

 

Bucky didn’t respond. He didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know how to apologize. His only response was anger.

 

“You shouldn’t have followed me!” he screamed. Shanks, _Shanks_ actually shrunk back. Buggy felt like he’d fallen into a frozen ocean. “Never do that again!”

 

Buggy stumbled to his feet and fled, leaving Shanks on the ground beneath him.


	25. Day 25 : Candy

DAY TWENTY FIVE : CANDY

 

The best thing about the season, Sanji thought, was giving out candy to little kids.

 

Unfortunately, there were no little kids to be found on the _Sunny_. Not the cute kind that dressed up in hand made costumes and ran up to door and did little dances and smiled all big and hopeful and full of innocence.

 

On the _Sunny_ , there were just children that looked like grown adults, but were, in fact, the exact fucking opposite. Immature, rude, annoying and disgusting (Except for the girls, of course) and Sanji was trapped with them in the middle of the ocean on his favorite day of the year.

 

He didn’t care much for the scare masks, and the one time someone had tried to force him into wearing one he had kicked them so hard their leg broke and started crying for Zeff. He tended to stick to a few fake teeth and some red paint, or a pair of ears stuck to his head with a headband.

 

That year, he didn’t even have those. Sad as it was, they just didn’t have Halloween costumes with them on board. The closest thing he had was a little pink thing in the back of his closet that none EVER needed to know existed.

 

Still, when the day came the kitchen smelled sweet with sugar chocolate and vanilla and as the dark night fell Sanji made his way out and into the rest of the ship.

 

There were lots of places for him to put things.

 

Chocolate on the pillows of the girls, sticks of hard rock candies on Usopp’s work bench, a little jar of candied gems in Franky’s. He left a bowl of cotton candy in Choppers medical ward and slipped a few chunks of chocolate in Luffy’s pocket when he wasn’t looking. He left a cup of salt water taffy with Brooks piano.

 

Even Zoro, he dropped  a few fucked up mallowmars in his weight room.

 

And that night, he listened as everyone found their treats and smiled to himself over his own little trick.


	26. Day 26 : Mummy

DAY TWENTY SIX : MUMMY

“It says… Well, it could be interpreted a lot of ways,” Robin said quietly. Her soft voice still managed to echo around the tomb, threatening to dislodge the dust that had settled so fully on the animal headed jars and the shining gold sarcophagus that had brought them there in the first place. Despite the legends of a curse, Luffy wanted it, and what their captain wanted, he got.

 

Even if he was too busy in a fire fight a half a mile above their heads to be there when they opened the box to bring him back his mummy.

 

Where was Sanji when she needed him?

 

Nami fiddled with her staff uncomfortably, her dark eyes fixed on the doorway while Robin struggled to translate the ancient password to open the ancient box. Lamp light threat their shadows against the wall in terrible screaming figures and Nami pretended she wasn’t about to start shaking in her boots when a wind blew through the door and twirled her long orange hair into a fiery halo.

 

She looked to Robin.

 

“I think I’ve got it,” she announced. A book older than most countries lay open in her palm. Her other hand lifted to touch the golden casing. Nami privately wondered how much it was worth. How much could she get if she melted it down and sold it in its raw essence.

 

Robin started speaking in a language that made Nami feel her skin pull away from her bones. It rippled through the air, shaking cobwebs and phantoms from the walls. Nami could feel the tiny people marching around the fresco’s staring daggers at the grave robbers.

 

 _Hieroglyphics_ , Robin’s voice echoed in her head. _They’re_ _hieroglyphics_.

 

The sarcaphogas started trembling. Then shaking violently. Nami drew back, unfolding her staff in front of her. The top half scraped off and hit the door hard, the way it was supposed to happen.

 

What was not supposed to happen was a small bandaged hand wasn’t supposed to grasp the edge of the case. Nami’s heart leapt into her throat.

 

“Is that supposed to happen?” she squeaked, drawing closer to Robin. Robin wrapped an arm around her middle, pulling her close while she lifted her pistol and pointed it towards the figure wrapped in gauze that was slowly sitting up. A hand reached up and started unwinding the bandages around the head.

 

Nami felt her stomach drop.

 

“I don’t want to see a mummy!” she hissed in Robins ear. Robin ran her palm across Nami’s ribs and in any other situation she would have melted into it. But this was not any other situation. This was a very, very bad situation.

 

The bandages dropped and Nami felt her jaw go with it.

 

Long blue locks fell in waves down covered shoulders and wide brown eyes turned to the pair. Nami gripped Robin’s leather jacket to her.

 

“Shit,” she whispered, “She’s hot.”

 

“Luffy will never notice,” Robin said, a frown twitching at her mouth at the waste of a pretty face. Her hand on Nami’s ribs slipped down to rest on her hips.

 

“Well. We noticed,” Nami returned. She waved at the mummy.

 

The pharaoh, a pinch in her brows, mirrored the gesture before she tried to talk and ended up coughing up dust too. Oh, she was cute as well.

 

“If Luffy wanted treasure, he should have come to get it himself, “ Nami declared. “She’s ours now. “

 

“I don’t think that’s how people work,” Robin said dryly. Nami bumped her hip.

 

“You know what I meant.” And so she did.


	27. Day 27 : Ghost

DAY TWENTY SEVEN : GHOST  

Luffy touched the board hesitantly, his fingers light for once in his life. He couldn’t be rough with this. If he messed it up-

 

He touch the smooth glass.

 

“I’m searching for something that I can’t reach,” he said softly. The curtains were drawn, the windows were shut tight and the cold winter air outside whispered against the walls of his house. It was dark and quiet and so very, very empty.

 

It was his fault it was like this. He could have had Usopp, who adored him and was so innocent and kind and good for him. But instead-

 

 _I don’t like them innocent, I don’t want no face fresh. Want them wearing leather, begging, let me be your taste test_.

 

That was what drew him to the sad eyes, bad guy, smug mouth filled with little white lies. Quick kisses in corridors and swift goodbyes. A flash of grey beneath long lashes that sparked with mirth and a dark humor that Luffy couldn’t keep from laughing.

 

It was wonderful, a thrill up his spine, his breath already gone.

 

Until it wasn’t. Until he was no good for Luffy, until Luffy was always tugging on his sleeve, begging him to stay and he thought he hated him sometimes for leaving. But he couldn’t hate him, he loved him anyway.

 

He loved his roughness and his softness and the prickly spikes around his squishy heart. He loved the tiny white freckles on his hands and the red on his skin when Luffy said something he thought was cute.

 

He didn’t love the hacking coughs, the rolling stones that sounded in his lungs and the phone blowing up with medication reminders and doctors calling. He didn’t mind sleeping with him but it was different that he was a never sleep alone boy.  

 

Until he was always sleeping. Gone.

 

“Where’d you go?” Luffy asked the air. He could still smell him. The faint scent of anticeptic, blood, and almonds. “I couldn’t find you in the body sleepin’ next to me.”

 

Wind lifted his hat right off of his head suddenly.

 

Luffy yelped and lunged for it, freezing halfway. The hat sat in the air, tilted just so the way it did whenever he was being teased by someone who was no longer next to him. Except they were.

 

“My ghost,” Luffy stared. Paleness in the room lit softly when the curtains blew. It locked windows allowed moonlight to filter in, littering the floor with white freckles that dotted the skin of the man in front of him. A bad guy, sad eyes, mouth full of white lies.

 

_It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll see you tomorrow._

_I love you._

The wind blew again, smoke erased the image and the glass ball shattered. Luffy’s hat floated to the ground.

 

His voice cracked. “My ghost, where’d you go?”


End file.
